


Through a mother's eyes

by supercali



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Robron anniversary exchange, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 08:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20904911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercali/pseuds/supercali
Summary: Aaron and Robert's relationship through another's eyes.





	Through a mother's eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Robron Anniversary Exchange. For @robron-fic-ideas on tumblr.

“Sarah, do you have a minute?” She wasn’t surprised to see Aaron on her doorstep one afternoon, more surprised that Robert wasn’t with him than anything, but they often called in if they were passing. This seemed different somehow, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“Oh yes, of course love. Come on in. What can I do for you then?” He looked nervous and she couldn’t help but smile. That even after all this time he didn’t know where to put himself in her home. “Sit down then.”

“It’s about Robert.”

“He’s alright isn’t he? He told me he was off to Harrogate for some new deal or other.”

“He’s fine. I…I wanted to talk to you.” She relaxes a little at his words but she can’t help but notice how he’s not in the slightest relaxed. 

“Well I have nothing doing, so I’m all ears. Do you want a cuppa first?” He nods, checking his watch again and she busies herself with the kettle, keeping an eye on him. She noticed he kept checking his pocket and finally it dawned on her why he might be here. “There we are. So…what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Me and Robert.”

“Oh you’ve not had another row have you?” She asks, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. Their arguments were fairly legendary in the village, explosive and short lived but perfect fodder for village gossips because the two of them didn’t understand the word private.

“No. It’s…well…I wanted to ask you something, because you’re all Robert’s got and…well there’s Vic of course…and Andy…”

“Aaron love, you’re going to hyperventilate or something.”

“Sorry. Well, you know I love Robert and how he’s been there for me.” She smiles because of course she does.

“You’ve been there for him too love, you know that.”

“Maybe. Bet you wish sometimes that he’d never met me.”

“Don’t be daft. Besides, no one else would put up with him!”

“I know it’s been rocky, but I…I love him and…I wanted to ask you…” She watched him fiddle with whatever was in his pocket again and decided to put him out of his misery or they’d be here all night.

“Aaron…are you asking my permission to marry Robert?” He stares at her wide eyed and for a minute she thinks maybe she’s wrong until he grins sheepishly and nods. “And if I say no?”

“I’d ask him anyway.” She can’t help but laugh at the determination in his voice.

“Then you have your answer love. Now, more importantly, when are you going to do it? And how?”

*****

It’s funny, the memories that come back to you, but as she waves him off, standing on the doorstep, Sarah can remember the first time she met Aaron. A little scrap of a thing turning up at the school gates, hand in Robert’s, being led along by her headstrong boy. 

_“Is it alright if Aaron comes home for tea, mum? He’s my new best friend.” _

She’d nodded, not asking what had happened to Ben, the boy Robert had declared his best friend only a few weeks ago. In her heart she knows that Robert had been upset when he’d talked about him not having a Mum. He’d not really said as much but Ben hadn’t been invited for tea since and he barely mentioned him anymore.

The two of them had chattered non stop all the way back to the farm, well Robert had, poor Aaron barely got a word in edgeways but he seemed happy enough, laughing along at Robert’s jokes.

Jack had shown them round the farm before tea, the two of them sharing a look over their heads at Aaron’s wide eyed gaze at all the animals. Robert was telling him about them all, showing off really but it was harmless. Aaron was hanging on every word.

When it was time to take Aaron home she’d thought he would burst into tears, Robert too until they promised Aaron could stay over at the weekend, as long as it was alright with his Mum.

The two of them were inseparable from that day on, through the first years of primary school, Aaron almost a permanent fixture at the farm through the holidays every year, until one day he stopped turning up at the gate with Robert. 

_“He doesn’t go to this school any more.”_

It was all she could get out of Robert. They tried calling the number they had for Aaron’s Mum because he was so upset, but it was unobtainable. He closed himself off a bit that day, nothing she or Jack could do to shake him out of it and he didn’t bring anyone else home in place of Aaron so they stopped asking. The next few years were a mix of fights and disagreements, losing the farm, Robert hearing all of it, doing his best to keep it from his little sister, the one person who could now get a proper smile out of him. When Andy joined their family she’d hoped it would be different but the rows just got worse, Andy loving the farm when Robert wanted nothing more than to run away as far as he could.

She worried about him, always on his own, head stuck in a book most days. She’d like to think it was her influence but she knew the truth. He was working his socks off to get good grades, the only way he had to escape the farm. He didn’t want to carry on the family tradition like Jack insisted, causing rows so furious it felt like the foundations were shaking. Nothing she said could get through to either of them.

It was his fifth year at school when he came home one day, big smile on his face, opening the door properly to reveal a lad about his age who looked familiar.

_“You remember Aaron don’t you Mum? Can he stay for tea?”_

Within an hour it was like Aaron had never been away, the two of them laughing and joking across the table. She couldn’t help but study Aaron across the table, he looked older than he should, only really relaxing when Robert was talking. She’d shook herself, resolving to stop looking for trouble. Robert was happy, that was all that mattered.

That summer something changed between he and Jack. Neither one of them would talk to her, Robert shutting himself in his room, barely even venturing out for meals, and Jack was in a black temper for days. The next day Robert was nowhere to be found, a bag of his stuff taken, his prized books gone from his desk and she was beside herself, incensed when Jack seemed unbothered.

_“It’s alright Mrs Sugden, he’s with me. He’s safe.”_

No matter how many times she told him to call her Sarah he never did. It was sweet really. She knew everyone in the village thought he was a tearaway and she supposed he was, but she saw a different side and besides, he made Robert happy so he couldn’t be so bad.

She relaxed a little, knew he was safe with Aaron and eventually he’d come to her. She needed to just give him time.

She found out in the end what had happened and her heart broke for her little boy and she tried her best to make him see how wrong his Dad had been. She could tell it was futile, he believed every word and it made her hate Jack for hurting his son that way.

They never made it up, him and Jack, she’s not sure they even spoke another word to each other before he died. He’d come to live in the village with her and Vic after the marriage broke down. He’d run again when she told him, after the phone call from Annie. She knew where he’d go, knew he’d be safe.

Aaron opened the door to the pub, letting her in straight away, Robert on the sofa, games controller abandoned beside him, eyes red and not from staring at the screen. He didn’t want to talk, she knew him well enough to know that so she followed Aaron into the kitchen.

_“He won’t talk to me. I only just managed to get out of him what was wrong.”_

_“That boy has every bit of his father’s stubbornness. There’s no good forcing him, he’ll talk to you though, when he’s ready, like he did before. Just look after him for me.”_

Like the rest of the village she’d been shocked and upset when Robert had told her that Aaron had tried to kill himself in the garage, not long after. He’d found him and the look on his face when she found him pacing the hospital corridor broke her heart.

_“Why couldn’t he tell me Mum?”_

She couldn’t answer him, could only hold him as he cried on her shoulder for his friend. She wished the answers came as easy as they had when he’d been little.

In the end they’d fallen back into their usual friendship easy enough, even if Robert did turn into a mother hen for a while.

She had an inkling that Aaron had feelings for her boy, thought that maybe it was mutual even if Robert wouldn’t or couldn’t admit that to himself yet. She saw the way they would look at each other when the other wasn’t watching, how what they said mattered more than anyone else.

She watched as Robert married Chrissie a few years later, Andy by his side instead of Aaron, watched him smile and dance with his beautiful new wife, oblivious to the man in the corner whose heart was breaking into little pieces. No one was more shocked than her when Robert had asked Andy to be best man, even Aaron. She knew there had been a distance between them for a while, since he’d met Chrissie. He’d been so single minded, the new job, impressing her father in a bid to be the son his late father wanted, that there was no room for Aaron. It wasn’t her place to interfere no matter how much she longed to.

All she could do was watch as they drifted further apart and hope one day her son would see sense.

She was sure he knew even though Aaron had never told him how he felt. In fact she was sure Robert still felt the same way but the words from years before had left their mark and he was still doing all he could to make his Dad proud, even though he was no longer there to see.

She liked Chrissie, she did, but she knew Robert, could tell there was something not right, he wasn’t completely happy and maybe it was inevitable that their marriage would fail before they’d even marked a year off on the calendar. He’d come home, tail between his legs, dropping his bags on the table, guilt all over his face as he told her about Rebecca.

He’d been a bit like a lost pup after that, moping around the house under her feet for weeks. There was no Aaron to take his mind off anything. He’d fled to France with some rugby player that turned up in the village, not long after Robert had left with his new wife, coming as close as ever to revealing his true feelings.

_“I can’t watch them around the place, all happy and in love. It’s better this way.”_

He’d told her the morning he’d left when she’d asked him outright whether he loved Robert. She’d wanted to tell Robert he was leaving but Aaron wouldn’t let her saying it was for the best that he didn’t know.

When Aaron finally came home Robert had kept away, stubborn as ever.

_“He left. He hasn’t tried to contact me.”_

_“Maybe you should think on why that is.”_

He’d been annoyed with her that day but he had to figure it out for himself, had to overcome Jack’s words. She could only hope he would.

She’d thought maybe once the divorce was settled that he and Aaron might find their way to each other but instead they just wandered round the village ignoring each other. She knew Aaron’s Dad had turned up and he clearly wasn’t happy about it, but that didn’t explain why he was avoiding Robert.

It was a week or so later when she’d been stopped by Chas, frantic because Aaron had disappeared. At the time she’d not thought much of it, he was an adult after all, but then Robert didn’t come home until the next evening and she’d never seen him look so lost.

_“I don’t know how to help him Mum.” _

She couldn’t get any details from him, not then but it had all come out and in the midst of her heartbreak for Aaron and her anger at what he’d been through, she couldn’t help but be proud of how Robert had been there for him.

Eventually they’d got together but it seemed like they were more off than on for months, until they were over and Robert wouldn’t tell her anything about why.

It had been late one night when it all changed. Aaron had turned up on her doorstep saying those exact words, soaked to the skin from the rain as she ushered him inside.

The stupid feud with Andy had ended up with Robert getting shot. Aaron had been there he said, they’d been arguing. It was all they seemed to do these days, the two of them too determined to be right about everythingto ever get anywhere.

They’d sat together in the waiting room, looking up every time someone walked past, hoping it would be a doctor with news, hopefully good.

_“You still love him don’t you?”_

_“I never stopped. Even when he winds me up.”_

_“So tell him.”_

She thought he’d ignored her, he’d gone from the hospital as soon as he found out Robert would be ok and she didn’t see him again until the two of them walked into the pub together not long after Robert was discharged. Nobody else would probably notice the difference but she did, the little touches on Robert’s arm, Robert’s hand on his back as they pushed past the crowd of people.

She waited, hoping they would tell her but in the end her impatience ran out when they were in the corner booth at the back of the pub, no one else nearby.

_“Do you boys have something to tell me?”_

*****

“Mum! I can’t find my tie!”

“It’s on your…oh honestly.” She grumbled, climbing the stairs up to the room Robert had stayed in the night before. At least that had been the plan. He might think because she was getting older that she was stupid, but she could hear the door creak open and shut well enough, and she could see him walking up the lane to Mill too. “I left it on your bed while you were in the shower. Look it’s right there.” 

“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” He’s dressed, waistcoat hanging undone and shirt collar up around his ears as he stared out of the window.

“What’s wrong?” As she steps further into the room she sees what it is he’s staring at. “He’s not here any more Robert.”

“He is, up here.” He points a finger at his head, still staring out of the window at the graveyard.

“You’re the only one who can get rid of him. You know he was wrong, and I know that doesn’t help, but he was, and you’re getting married to the man you love, the man you’ve loved for years despite all your protests to the contrary.”

“Do you think he ever would’ve accepted it?”

“You know I can’t answer that love. You’re happy and maybe that would’ve been enough for him, but, and this sounds harsh, your Dad doesn’t matter. It’s what you think that is the only important thing.” He shrugs. “Does Aaron know you still feel like this.”

“Yeah. He said the same as you.”

“I always said that boy had sense. He loves you, loves you so much he came here and asked for my permission to marry you.”

“He…he did?”

“Yeah. I had to have a little fun, and I asked him what he’d do if I said no.”

“And?” He sits on the side of the bed, running the tie through his fingers, a small grin on his face.

“He said he’d ask you anyway. Don’t you see, he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He loves you and that’s all that matters.” He nods but won’t meet her gaze. “So, get that tie on, or you’re going to be late.”

*****

_“I call upon these persons here present, to witness that I, Robert Jacob Sugden, do take you, Aaron Dingle, to be my lawful wedded husband.”_

She’s watched them go through a lot in their lives, and she’s been proud, not just of Robert, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been prouder of her son than watching him marry the love of his life in front of the whole village.


End file.
